


What Might Have Been

by sugarplumsenpai



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Hogwarts First Year, M/M, Potions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:28:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25802884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugarplumsenpai/pseuds/sugarplumsenpai
Summary: Draco contemplates Potter's potion-brewing skills. If one could call them that.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28





	What Might Have Been

**Author's Note:**

> This is more an experimental piece than a full story, but it felt wrong to post it in a drabble collection, so here we are. :) The fic was written for the three prompt words Scar, Ink, and Smoke given by [IttyBittyTeapot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleSeedofDarkness/pseuds/IttyBittyTeapot). Thank you so much for the inspiration, my friend.

Harry Potter sucks at Potions. It’s almost painful to witness. 

Where there should be natural instinct is nothing but confusion, as though he never believed whatever he’s brewing will actually work. His caldron’s contains look vile, smoking against Potter’s glasses and leaving oily sweat on his scar. 

Draco shudders when Potter wipes it away with the sleeve of his robes, and finds a sick satisfaction in his laugh when Crabbe and Goyle mimic the gesture. Both their concoctions are a disgrace to the wizarding world just the same, more so if anyone asked him, given they should have had proper home training, but at least they get the irony of the whole situation. 

_ If you’d only have taken my hand, _ Draco thinks when Potter grimaces at the greening sludge before him and flinches back with a hand pressed to his mouth when it burbs ashen sparks into his face. _ I could have helped you. I would have. I’d have made you trust in yourself. Trust is everything. The fire feels it. The ingredients too. You should have taken my hand.  _

_ Instead, you chose…_them. 

The two banes of Draco’s existence glower at him from the Gryffindors’ table as though he was the reason for Potter being a stumbling opprobrium. Draco sneers back. Potter deserves better than a ginger fool and a jackanapes who never held a wand before she was twelve. 

He yet has to decide which of them is the worse company. Weasley at least has a magical background, blood traitors as his family are. Granger is a nothing in every respect. No wonder she’s this eager to please. 

Draco regards his potions book. 

_ Tell HP to believe in the magic, _ reads his own handwriting, left on a small slip of parchment during endless self-teaching hours at the Manor. 

The green letters seem to burn themselves into Draco’s head and accuse him of having done everything wrong in his life. If he only knew where and when it started. 

_ Complex as brewing potions is, it also is so easy. Like loving your mother. If you follow your instincts, she will smile. _

He gives the note a tap, and the invisible ink vanishes before his eyes, flickering once on Potter’s initials. 

Maybe, one day, Draco can tell him. 


End file.
